“I need to talk to Dieter, ASAP.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we arrange your entry into Belmarsh through channels with the Brits, Vanessa. And here’s how we play it beyond that: You tell no one that Bhoot contacted you. We monitor you at all times. We get you a micro-recorder; it will at least catch half of the conversation.”
He ran his hand across his bristled hair again. “This is unbelievable. It’s against every rule in the book, and, frankly, it’s totally insane that I’m even considering letting it ride . . . and only because you’ve proven to me before that your instincts are good . . . Christ, I need time to think . . .”
He stepped to the French doors. “As for your notes, handwrite them, this time legibly, katalava? Nothing on the computer. Keep one copy and give the other copy to me.”
He pushed the doors open. “I have someone I want to read in on this.”
Vanessa followed him inside again. “Not the DDO—”
Chris slashed his finger across his mouth: Shut up!
Vanessa nodded. But she frowned her question again, Who?
“A mind reader,” Chris said, taking his turn at being cryptic.
He kept moving toward the foyer. “I’ve got a room at the Hôtel Cayré if you need me before tomorrow 0700.
“One more thing.” He pulled his overcoat from the rack and then turned to face Vanessa. “We both know Khoury’s in Paris.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper. “Have you seen him?”
“No.”
Chris kept staring at her.
She said, “I swear I have not seen him.” And she held up her right palm. Loaded question and answer.
“I expect you to keep me apprised of any developments. Any developments . . .”
He was referring to the fact a CIA counterterrorism ops officer was her not-so-secret lover until last fall, when inside security began taking an uncomfortably close, and unfounded, look at Khoury because of his Lebanese heritage. Their relationship—and varying covers, him “inside” and her “outside”—put them both at serious risk.
“I mean it, Vanessa.”
“I know.” She nodded.
She did, she knew what it would cost if she ever lied to Chris again about her relationship with David Khoury.
Never mind that she’d lied to him through omission minutes ago when she failed to mention that Bhoot had turned the conversation to her father. She was certain Chris would ban more contact if he knew Bhoot was delving into her personal history.
Chris stepped into the shadowy hallway, but Vanessa heard his voice soften as he said, “Get some sleep.”
15
Vanessa blinked up at the water stain on the bedroom ceiling. Her mouth felt unbearably dry. She rolled off the bed, up for the third time in ten minutes.
At the ornate bathroom sink, she filled a glass with tap water. She gulped most of it. In the half-light she splashed water on her face, then she leaned in to the mirror, her weight pressing down through her arms to the sink.
Shrouded in shadow, the reflection in the antiqued glass belonged to a stranger—a woman just months shy of her thirtieth birthday, dark blond hair hanging loose to her shoulders; mouth a little too wide for her face; blue eyes beneath well-defined eyebrows bloodshot from smoke, chemicals, and exhaustion; her usual sleep uniform of faded T-shirt and boxers.
She frowned at her image, her dark brows drawing together in a deep crease. She ran her fingertips along the rash of small abrasions scattered across her neck and cheeks. Still red and tender. Most of the marks would disappear completely within a week. She pushed herself away from the sink, pivoting out of the small bathroom. She needed to move because sleep just wasn’t happening.
Hours ago, she’d finished translating her shorthand transcript of her conversation with Bhoot.
She’d e-mailed her mother in the States that she was fine. Her mom knew she was in Paris on “business,” and she knew enough not to ask about it anymore. Usually. But today she’d seen the news of the bombing and Vanessa didn’t want her to worry more than she would anyway.
Vanessa’s father had been military to the core, and he’d spent years in military intelligence. A fact Vanessa had only recently learned. So, yes, her mother knew when and what not to ask.
A second e-mail to her best friend and college roommate, Marie, the only person outside her immediate family who knew her true employer. Marie was a true-blue friend. If necessary, Vanessa knew she could trust her with her life.
It wasn’t just the desire to let close family and friends know she was safe, it was also the need to connect with people she loved. Her career with the CIA had a way of pushing all that aside . . . the constant travel, the need for secrecy, and admittedly the strangeness of it all.
Of course her instinct had been to get word to David Khoury, but in the end she decided to leave it alone for the night. He was Agency, so he would have known just minutes after the bombing that she was safe. She gave herself a halfhearted mental pat on the back for showing some willpower—but the truth was she missed him deeply.
Saving her brother for last, Vanessa had e-mailed Marshall, who was serving with the Marines’ 3rd Recon Battalion in Afghanistan:
Alive here Big Bro—miss you love you V
She was alone in the safe house for the first time in more than twenty-four hours, and she tried to take comfort in the sounds of life—the moan and rattle of rusted pipes, the hissing breath of radiators, the hum of computers breathing data twenty-four/seven. At this point, she couldn’t sort out if solitude was a good thing or not.
Death had brushed past her today, leaving scratches, bruises, aches—adding another notch to a disturbing straight of near misses.
But in the end leaving her alive. She’d survived again.
What happened to the young girl she’d tried to help? Had she lost her leg today? What hospital was she in? Was her family with her?
Tomorrow, Vanessa told herself, she would find out what she could about the girl and the other victims. Tonight—make that today, because it was past midnight—she needed rest. Only a few hours until Team Viper’s first meeting.
But sleep eluded her the way it so often did.
The Agency shrink, Dr. Peyton Wright at Headquarters, hounded her about sleep deprivation: “You can’t function forever on three or four hours a night, Vanessa. If not eight hours, you need to try at least for six.”
“My dad was this way, I’ve always been this way,” Vanessa had reported, shrugging at the psychologist. “You want to give me pills, be my guest, but I’ll flush them.”
“I don’t want you to depend upon pills,” Peyton had said, sighing stoically. “I want to get at the heart of why you don’t sleep. Is it the nightmares?”
“I’ll try counting sheep, Doc.” Skipping past the question about her nightmares, Vanessa masked her discomfort with a flip grin. “One bah, two bah, three bah . . .” Her evasion didn’t fool either of them.
Vanessa counted crunches now. Beginning the regimen she’d put her body through two times a day for the past six weeks.
After she killed the Chechen, her reward had been doled out in twenty hours of Agency-mandated counseling (she hated every minute) and a refresher course in personal safety at the Farm (which she actually kind of liked). She had paid special attention to the firearms portion and the hand-to-hand combat training. She moved up to take a level 4 belt in Krav Maga. All of it an effort to make herself feel safe in the world again, as the Agency shrink had pointed out—“How’s that working out for you?”
A hundred crunches, roll-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, kicking and punching drills—all of it a kind of physical and mental detox to keep old ghosts at bay.
Midway through the push-ups, sweat gleamed on her forehead and dripped down her neck, dampening her T-shirt. Eyes closed, she worked to exhaust her muscles until they were shaky and strained, until her mind finally pulled back from the worst images.
She finished the push-ups and bounced quietly to her fee
t, waiting for the dizziness that had plagued her all day. But she stayed steady—almost.
From the room’s two outside windows came the muted pitch of a car horn, standing out tonight because it was unusually quiet. She startled at the loud and sudden clang of the ancient pipes of the ornate radiators.
She heard the echo of a question from Dr. P: Are you happy with the life you’ve chosen, Vanessa?
No time to debate the answer with herself.
The soft complaint of old wood put her body on alert. Had Hays come back for something? A follow-up noise—the barely audible weight of feet on the floor—confirmed that she wasn’t alone. She’d left the bedroom door ajar, lights off, and now she shifted toward the door just as it opened. She’d already assumed a ready stance when a shadowy form filled the frame.
“You going to kill me?” He stood, arms by his sides, voice low and familiar.
“Damn it!” Surprise punched out the first word. She breathed, “Khoury.” And softer now. “Damn you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.”
David Khoury stepped into the light and the sight of him softened her, leaving her startled by the depth of longing she felt.
Three months had passed since the last time they’d been together. And then it had been only for minutes as they said good-bye, not knowing when they’d see each other again.
He moved toward her, reaching for her hand almost the way she’d reached for him those months ago. But he waited, leaving the space until she reached out, too.
When she did, her fingers curled under the collar of his blue shirt, pulling roughly so his body pressed hers back and they both toppled to the bed.
“I was so afraid when I heard about the bomb,” he said.
“But you heard I was okay,” she whispered, knowing how agonizing minutes—even seconds—of uncertainty could be.
He took a deep breath. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said, mirroring her thoughts. He nuzzled her, breathing in her scent, and she felt the ground giving way—giving in to the warmth and the sensuality and the chance to lose herself.
She dug her fingers into his back ribs. He was already pulling her T-shirt up over her head, and he stopped and caught her, her wrists trapped in her shirt and in the grip of his hand. His mouth already on one of her breasts, his lips gentle on her nipple. The warmth and heaviness of desire coursed through her and she felt the heat deep in her belly and the wetness between her legs.
When he relaxed his grip on her wrists she shifted—moaning even as she made a halfhearted attempt to distance herself. But he wouldn’t release her and he slid his mouth to her other breast, biting her nipple a little harder this time.
She cried out, wrapping her legs around him so it felt as if they were bound together.
A rough, feral growl rose from deep in his throat. His tongue parted her lips, while his fingers slid between her thighs. Touching her tenderly, but she could feel the driving intensity.
And when she guided him inside her, they let go—fucking because they were alive and together.
16
She slept deeply, as if his arms around her kept the world’s darkness at bay, at least for these hours. She drifted up to awareness just enough to feel lucky and grateful for his warmth, his strength.
It was different when she woke to the gentle yet persistent nudge of him against her thigh. She thought he was drifting, too, half awake and aroused. She drew out the minutes until she turned her face to his and met his mouth with hers.
“Habibti,” he said, burying his face against the hollow of her neck, lips warm and wet on her skin. An Arabic term of endearment—for a lover or for a child.
He rarely said more than that—partly his natural wariness, a quality she could match in spades, and partly because of the covert nature of their jobs, the complexity of their lives.
But now he surprised her. “God, I’ve missed you . . . I can’t stand being away from you . . .”
She melted, falling into the heat and the sensuality and the chance to forget the horrible events of the previous day.
But just then Chris flashed through her thoughts. “Wait, wait . . . we shouldn’t, it’s wrong. I made a promise . . .”
“Why is it wrong?” Khoury whispered softly. “I love you, and I’m pretty sure you love me.” He pulled her body tightly against his. “Do you love me?”
“David . . . it’s not that simple . . .”
“Vanessa, do you love me?”
“Oh . . .” She’d been through the pain of missing him, aching for his touch, the grief and the loss of him—and now he was asking her to open up again, to risk everything again.
A shudder ran through him . . . into her.
She breathed her answer. “Yes.”
All she heard in reply were his very faint words, “Love you . . .”
17
The hush of breathing invaded the murky waters of Vanessa’s dream and she tried to swim her way to the surface. She reached out—David?—feeling for her lover’s warmth, feeling the heaviness of desire throughout her body even as she realized: He’d left her bed hours ago.
Her eyes shot open and she stared up at someone standing just inside the doorway.
That someone muttered, “Sorry.”
“Hays?” She grabbed the covers, pulling them to her throat, and bolting halfway up. “What’s happened? The dirty bomb—is there something new?”
“No, no, all status quo, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, looking rumpled and caffeine-fueled—and was he blushing slightly?
“Then what?” She tugged the sheet around her bare shoulders. “Why are you in my room?” she asked, keeping her tone nice but firm.
“We’ve got something on the bomber—and mostly black holes on True Jihad—and Chris called to say he’ll be running late because of an exchange with Headquarters and he wants you to greet Team Viper and get them settled . . . so . . . well”—he barely glanced at his large red wristwatch—“0619 hours. You should get dressed.”
“Got it. Thanks.” This time she let the sarcasm show, but he didn’t even notice.
Wait. Where did David toss my T-shirt and boxers? And why did I let myself fall back asleep once he left? “Okay, I’m grabbing a thirty-second shower.”
“Sure,” he said, stumbling over his own feet as he backed out the door.
“But Hays”—she stopped him—“what about the bomber?”
His eyes flitted toward the bed’s brass headboard, and she caught a glimpse of her boxers inside out and flagged on a post.
He tried to look serious, but his mouth curved briefly into a crooked smile.
She kept her expression flat. “Gary Martin Hays,” she prompted, enunciating each syllable of his name. “The bomber?”
“Right. Remember Abdul Hasib al-Attas . . .”
“Yes . . .”
“Remember he married an American woman before he found his calling to move back to Yemen and climb the ranks of Al Qaeda?”
“C’mon, Hays, get to the point—Abdul’s been dead for more than a year.”
Hays shrugged. “And now it looks like his son Omar is dead, too, following the call of jihad. We haven’t confirmed DNA, but—”
“The bomber was Abdul’s American-born son? Shit. Shit.” She pulled the sheet with her as she almost jumped out of bed. “So he was recruited? By True Jihad? Are they even a part of Al Qaeda in Yemen?”
“We still need DNA confirmation, but we’ve got a solid match via facial ID,” Hays said slowly. “The weirdest thing, True Jihad, they don’t show up on anybody’s radar until about ten days ago when a bare-bones website launched. So we haven’t connected the dots yet—between Abdul al-Attas and Al Qaeda and Omar—but they might be there. We’re looking through every haystack.” He frowned so hard the skin on his forehead creased into a knot. “But you know, Shia-Sunni-wise, why would Al Qaeda insert itself into something that really concerns the Iranians?”
Bhoot’s words whispered through Vanessa’s tho
ughts: “. . . what is mine has been stolen . . .”
A chill stung her skin. “So they can get their hands on a prototype of a miniaturized nuke,” she said, as much to herself as to Hays.
18
Less than four minutes after Hays left her room, Vanessa stepped out of the shower aware of new activity in the safe house: Hays holding his ground as the French tech crew set up, some bilingual bantering, the robust smell of slightly burnt coffee beans.
She toweled off quickly as she grabbed the bra and underpants she’d remembered to wash out with hand soap last night. They weren’t quite dry, but she put them on at the same time she brushed her teeth. She stepped into wrinkle-proof light gray slacks and pulled on a mauve sweater, fitted but not too tight.
Base with sunscreen, tinted lip gloss, mascara—she knew all too well the power of presentation. She draped a gray-and-rose-hued scarf around her neck—an impulse bargain buy next to the checkout counter in the French chain Pimkie. Even though she wasn’t confident when it came to the knot, she decided to wear the scarf anyway—de rigueur for French women.
She was, after all, a female in Paris and a woman on an international team where you brought your game to the table.
She ran a brush through her hair to pick up the natural shine; stepped into soft Isabel Marant ankle boots, a recent and very big splurge. One last check in the mirror, and she was ready to greet Team Viper, as per Chris’s orders.
She found Hays still hovering between screens in the study-turned-tech-lair. She quickly cornered him. “Any update from Chris? Did he say when he’d be here?” Was he arranging access to Dieter Schoeman? she wondered silently.
Hays shrugged, barely looking at her because he was too caught up in watching the strands of numbers running across one monitor, looping CCTV footage of the Louvre courtyard on the second, and the surveillance photos of the suicide bomber, Omar, on the third.
Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) Page 7